Control DLC 'AWE' Review: The Remedy Universe taking Shape

Published by 505 Games and developed by Remedy, CONTROL recently released its second DLC, AWE, and it's hard not to recall the name of Remedy's excellent Alan Wake. In fact, it's a bold attempt by Remedy, and the first step in what they've announced as the "Remedy Universe" concept.

It's not hard to understand why Alan Wake was chosen; after all, it's one of Remedy's most prestigious titles. In early July 2019, Remedy announced that the rights to Alan Wake have officially been withdrawn. This high-profile "official announcement" has made many "Soul Killer" players speculate whether it is implying the possibility of "Soul Killer 2" behind the move.

Of course, it takes a long time to make a good game. Therefore, the story of "Mind Killer", first in the DLC identity of "Control", came to the players.

In the content of this DLC, players will continue to play the protagonist Jeese, bringing the Federal Control Bureau back to "control". This time, Jeese's footsteps came to the investigation Department. The Investigation Department is a department that has been dealing with foreignizers for a long time, so naturally, there are a lot of new foreignizers in this DLC.

Of course, the most attracted players' attention, or this DLC, and "Alan Wake" related to that part. However, this DLC is not only one and "Mind Killer" related events, but there are enough several events, and "Mind Killer" related to the Bright Falls town incident, just one of them.

For those who already know both Alan Wake and Control, it's natural to wonder how Remedy is going to merge Alan Wake and Control into one piece of DLC. After all, the two games play differently.

Alan Wake, the writer, doesn't have the fighting abilities of Jeese, the director of the Federal Control Bureau, so Alan Wake's gameplay is relatively puzzle-oriented. Jeese has a strong combat ability, so the play process of Control is inseparable from combat.

Remedy has brilliantly captured one of the most memorable aspects of Alan Wake's combat gameplay: lighting. In Alan Wake, Alan can use tools such as flashlights to illuminate enemies in the dark, making them weak and can be defeated.

But unlike Alan Wake, Jeese uses light in a more distinctive way - mind control. Because the combat gameplay of "Control" includes a large number of displacement operations, copying Alan Wake to focus on the enemy with a flashlight, not only the sense of violation is too strong, but also the actual operation is difficult. As a result, Jeese only needs to use mind control to collect nearby flashlight-like light sources and dispel the darkness in the game.

However, Jeese's use of mind control of the light source is used to remove obstacles on the map, and does not integrate the elements of controlling the light source into the combat gameplay. In order to better integrate the design of "using light combat" into the game, corresponding to this DLC, there are a lot of puzzles completed by using light.

In the body content of "Control", we often encounter the situation of "to put the battery back into the jack". In this DLC, the same way of gameplay will appear in large numbers.

In "AWE", the battery and the light source are closely linked, and until the final BOSS battle, the player can't actually attack the BOSS. The only thing that can be done is to "light up" the BOSS by moving the battery, making him weaker.

It is important to mention the BOSS battle in the game. The BOSS design in this DLC is particularly exquisite. Its appearance is very strange - always in a dark package, in a highly distorted, exaggerated elongated human form.

During the BOSS battle, the player must use a limited number of batteries to navigate between darkness and light at the target point. During the shuttle process, the bosses who cannot be attacked and have the ability to teleport and long-range attack will continue to pose a substantial threat to the player's health, and the strange noises mainly based on screams will continue to appear, bringing a sense of psychological pressure to the player.

How to describe the excellent level of BOSS battle in this DLC? It is almost at the same level as the most acclaimed ashtray maze design in the body. I think that as long as the players who have experienced the original ashtray maze can understand the excellent level of this BOSS battle through this comparison.

In the DLC, Alan Wake related content will continue to appear as a collection of data. Thanks to this, players can look at their records of the events in Bright Falls from the perspective of the Federal Control Bureau of Control, and get more understanding from "outsiders".

In addition to the content related to Alan Wake, the new DLC "AWE" also provides players with some new content, such as new weapons and new talents.

"Impact" is a new weapon added to the DLC, and its use experience is similar to the sticky grenade launcher, the player can control the blast time of the launcher. However, the interesting use is that the viscoelastic can attach to surrounding objects, and Jeese can throw objects with his mind. As a result, the player can decide how to use "shock" more readily according to their own preferences.

In addition to "impact", the game also adds more talents, such as "mind control" can control more objects at once. In actual combat, the difference between controlling multiple objects and controlling a single object is most obvious, and this talent becomes especially important when dealing with multiple enemies who have projectiles as a means of attack.

Control itself has also received minor updates, such as an auxiliary mode that allows players to adjust the amount of damage to form a "second kill" effect. In the ontology, for example, some of the "long levels" that were once a headache for the player were added with additional control points and checkpoints. Obviously, the intention of these updates is to make the game smoother for players and reduce negative feedback.

Also, in Control's first DLC, "The Foundation," an interesting alienating "Jukebox" appears. And this DLC, also added a new alienation - "arcade".

"Arcade" corresponds to different modes of play, which have different names, but are not difficult to understand in terms of gameplay -- play modes with special rules, such as time challenges, infinite combat, and BOSS challenges. There is no doubt that the latter is more careful than adding these game modes directly to the Start menu, using the "alien" Settings present in the game, placing several arcade machines, and even creating special pixelated effects for the start and end of the game.

After the release of Control's second DLC "AWE", the two previously announced Control DLC have finally been fully released, and Remedy's concept of "Remedy Universe" has undoubtedly added a powerful member of Control, and the whole is gradually taking shape.

After completing this DLC content, I noticed a detail, after the story of "AWE" came to an end, the Federal Control Bureau received a message from a long time ago, this message is related to the Bright Falls incident, which probably means "the Bright Falls incident has a follow-up."

So, what this message implies, I think, is clear to everyone.

The Control Ultimate Compilation/Control Ultimate Edition is now available on Steam, and you can get 20% off if you buy it before September 9.